YOUR MAMAS NOTES: The 90210—that's Beverly Hills butter beans—may get heaps of press and glory as one of Southern California's most expensive and exclusive communities but it's the much lesser known 91008 community of Bradbury where some of the country's most expensive properties are bought and sold.

Believe it or not my little ponies but itty-bitty
Bradbury, nestled into the rolling foothills of the San Gabriel
Mountains a bit east of Pasadena and surrounded by far less affluent
communities that include Duarte, Monrovia, and Azusa, is consistently ranked by the fine folks at Forbes as among the most expensive zip codes in all of the U-nited States of America. Although we did not spot the 91008 among the top 50 most expensive zips in the list compiled by Forbes for 2011, in 2009 Bradbury came in at #4 with a median home price of $3,44,773 and in 2010 the zip code ranked in at the #1 spot in 2010 with a staggering median home price of $4,276,462.

Earlier today, thanks to The Bradbury Barker Your Mama learned what is easily Bradbury's largest and most lavish estate, built over the last 8 years by a real estate tycoon named Donald Abbey, hit the market to screams of flabbergast and a crash of cymbals with an whopping $78,000,000 price tag. No, puppies, Your Mama did not drunkenly add an extra zero. Mister Abbey's palatial pile actually carries a price tag of more than seventy-eight million bucks.

Let's run this opulent beast by the numbers and otherwise let the listing photographs speak for themselves: somewhere in the neighborhood of 8 landscaped acres; a 600-foot long gated driveway and double circular drive; Three-story, approximately 32,000 square foot mega-mansion main house with two-story library, behemoth reception hall/ballroom with 40-foot ceiling and built-in bar, and a colossal kitchen with copper range and barrel vaulted ceiling (that is perhaps lined with copper sheeting).

Listing information shows there are five bedrooms including two titanic master suites in the main house, one completely swaddled in a rather disturbing green (or maybe it's blue) stained wood paneling and the other with a gargantuan rotunda ceiling with trompe l'oeil architectural detailing and hand-painted frescos.

Other features of Mister Abbey's great estate in Bradbury include a 2,000 bottle wine cellar; six fireplaces; 3D theater and poker lounge; 10 car garage, a cross-shaped infinity-edged swimming pool (that may or may not be meant to make some sort of religious statement) and party-sized 15-person spa; sprawling house with lavish lounge, fitness and spa facilities; guest house, tennis court, temperature controlled trout pond with two-story waterfall, and a subterranean firing range.

And, let's not forget, a jaw-dropping price tag of $78,800,000, a number that may or may not be realistic—we don't know—but certainly guarantees to set all the property gossips tongues a-waggin'.

For the full photographic monty, listing agent Bob Hurwitz at the Hurwitz James Company set up a virtual tour sure to delight and/or mortify anyone interested the real estate affliction known in Your Mama's circle as Real Estate Size Queenery.

43 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Holy God that is a big house. Nice Celtic cross pool. Seeing as most of the buyers of these homes these days are Indian, Arab or Russian, that may pose a problem for selling it. I suppose he could always sell it to Joel Osteen, he must have pilfered enough money from his congregation by now to purchase this home.

A cruciform swimming pool to raise Aimee Semple McPherson from the dead; a bathtub only Marat could love; an aeordrome-style media room to warm Howard Hughes' heart; a luridly domed bedroom for Don Juan; and a garage to make the Sultan of Brunei weep.

It all adds up to a hilltop paean to Hearst Castle that manages to misfire on every point. Proof positive that there's a little kernel of truth in the saying, "...you can always tell what God thinks of money when you look at the people he gives it to..."

Christ on a cracker, this monstrosity is big, ugly & costly. The "architect" should have his eyes plucked out & his hands lopped off before being drawn, quartered and roasted on a spit over that copper range...

HOT DAYUM! I am near passing out at this hideous creation. The architect was purely drunk on delusional of grandness and results in tacky cheap faux mcmansion. Nothing is old world, this is a homage to all that is bad in design (or lack there of). To much to take in it is sooo bad!

May the Gracious Lord Grant this seller some better architectural taste and free him of this burden. This I pray as I look at the Cross Pool!

i am confused, why would this ugly 50K house on 6 acres located at least 10 miles east of Pasadena, CA be worth anywhere even close to $78 MILLION dollars?also in that part of 'the bowl',,, wouldn't there be terrible smog as well

Apparently he’s neighbors with several shady characters; Tee-Vee “evangelists” Peter Popoff and Melissa Scott supposedly both own homes in the same gated community. I sincerely pray that those two clowns can together cough up the 78 million clams to buy this place and turn it into what it should have been from the beginning: a holy cathedral with dual spiritual leaders, complete with weekly revival services in the dome-to-heaven bedroom, daily human sacrifices in the underground firing range, and life-redeeming baptisms in the sanctified cruciform pool. Perhaps even an exorcism or two in the poker lounge.

Your pictures were enough for me, Mama. As much as I love real estate, I never even bothered to click on the links for more pictures or a virtual tour. I guess I like "good" real estate. This place would make a nice high-end rehab facility or a retreat for holy-rollers. Maybe the nearby preachers can put in a bid.

just horrible...NO redeeming features. ugly, bad taste, and can't be "unseen".I did take the tour....oh LORD. it got worse!even the kitchen hurts my eyes....and the floors....those are some uuuuuuuglyyyyyyyyy floors!

Chrissy, I take your point, although I would caution anyone who was traumatized by that scene in A Clockwork Orange with Malcolm McDowell's eyes forced open be forewarned...like watching a plane crash in slow motion.

As for the soundtrack, it immediately put me in mind of this depiction of horror, where it's employed @ about 6:15 onwards...

This home is massive. I can't believe anyone would have that kind of money to spend on a home. The style and architecture is not for me, but someone may like it? Good luck to whoever is trying to sell it.

Here's a question: what's the allure of living in a house the size of a resort hotel, where you have to walk a quarter mile from the living room to the master bedroom?

I can understand luxury. I can understand wanting a big house. But 32K sq ft is just absurd. I spent some time at Horace Trumbauer's Elkins mansion a couple years ago, and it is a beautiful, near-perfect house. But it's so large that it's a five-minute walk from the library to the master bedroom.

Here you go. Here's a big old fine home someone doesn't want anymore. Too bad they didn't realize that didn't need it to begin with isn't it?

Seriously, why would you need a home you could put ten families in? This is one of those don't need don't want kind of things most wise people would never have even if they had the money. Hope they don't need their money quickly. This house is going to be very hard to unload.

Mike says. That house is for real inside and out built with top quality material from all over the world. The reason the pool is shaped like a cross is the long part is 8 ft deep 24 ft wide and 135 ft long for swimming laps, one side of the cross is deep for diving and the other side shallow for sports like volleyball. The house looks way better in real life. Don't be a hater this man put a lot of people to work on this project and he's a good man.

YOU SIR ARE AN INSULT...I DONT CARE WHAT ANYONE THINKS...PEOPLE KIDS AND WOMEN ARE HOMELESS, NO FOOD, SHELTER, ABUSED, DENIED CREDIT BECAUSE OF NO JOB, MEN WORKING 2 OR 3 JOBS TO SUPPORT THEIR FAMILIES, AND HERE YOU GO SEEING WHO WILL BUY THIS FILTH TO WHAT LAVISH YOUR MISTRESS OR GIRLFRIEND FURTHER. NO HEART, NO CLASS AND A FOOL. YOU IDIOT..WITH THE SALE OF THIS YOU COULD PROBABLY HOUSE THOUSANDS IN NEW YORK, HELP KIDS, BATTERED WOMAN, PEOPLE WITH NO INSURANCE, AND STILL BUY ANOTHER HOME IN BEVERLY HILLS. YOUR AS BAD AS CANDY SPELLING, ANOTHER NUT CASE...PEOPLE LIKE YOU BRING DOWN AMERICA..I GUESS YOU VOTED FOR ROMNEY, ASK HIM HE MIGHT BUY YOUR HOME, BUT HE COULDNT BUY THE WHITE HOUSE. HA HA HA.....